Taste of Europe
Start date: Aug 1, 2014,
End date: Jul 31, 2015
PROJECT
FINISHED
The one-year reciprocal project „Taste of Europe“ (4 courses of two or three weeks) is designed for 32 apprentices and students of the Secondary School of Public Catering in Ostrava-Hrabůvka, a contributory organization. By means of the proposed project we intend to endorse the quality increase of the initial professional education and training in our school. We also wish to provide our students with the international dimension of professional education and so motivate them to improve their study performance, alternatively to reduce their premature withdrawal from the educational system.
The educational stays will be held in Italy, Spain, United Kingdom and France starting from October 2014 up to June 2015. The stays will be attended by the 2nd – 4th grade (16-20 years) apprentices and students (16-20 years) of both study and apprentice courses for Cook, Waiter/waitress, Cook-Waiter, Confectioner, Management in gastronomy and Travel and Tourism services. The participants will be chosen on the basis of determined criteria. Their practical training, provided by our school’s partners, will be carried out in restaurants and hotels, accommodation facilities, travel agencies and in specialized workplaces of the partner’s school. The aims of the project are: to improve the professional abilities with the great emphasis on international cuisine (Italian, Spanish, English and Slovak) as well as on non-traditional food processing and service (fish and seafood); to familiarize the participants with new forms of work organization in a different working environment and to motivate them to the further education. The aim is also to extend participants´ skills significant for orientation on the labour market. The participants will be led and motivated to an active approach, flexibility, cooperation and they will cooperate with regular workforce in a foreign country. They will not only extend their practical and theoretical knowledge and innovative ways at meals preparing processes but also become familiar with the unique technological and organizational methods. The cooks and confectioners will obtain specific information on modern trends in European gastronomy, the waiters/waitresses will face and try new trends at guest service and communication with customers. The students of the Travel and Tourism services field will receive the practical experience in tourism services organization in the world-famous cities and popular tourist places. Except for the English language the participants will communicate also in the native language of the host country (Italian, Spanish and French). Among the participants there will be also the apprentices with specific learning deficiencies and apprentices from socially handicapped or single-parent families. All the participants will undergo special language, professional, psychological and cultural training before leaving for the educational stay. On the educational stay termination they will receive a certificate together with an evaluation of their performance.
The school in cooperation with its partners will ensure the issue of the Europass-Mobility document. The school’s traditional welfare partners will be also involved in this project, as well as the partner schools, receiving organizations and the intermediary organizations. We suppose that our school will act as the receiving organization for the students of our partner schools from Italy and France, provided that their grant requests are approved. The projects will be under continuous evaluation and will be presented at official school events, on web sites as well as in the local press.
We see the long-term contribution of our project in the fact that our school is involved in the educational process of which the output is defined as a contented school-leaver with professional competence and a certain degree of key competences, a person with an international experience that is conscious of their own professional and human qualities. And this very school-leaver will be able to find an employment and successfully start their professional career (in spite of initial difficulties and with a necessity of further education).